ss of manner. "He is running away from his nurse now, I know; and
I suppose he will be sent to bed directly after tea for doing so--as he
was yesterday."

"Was he? Poor little beggar! Was that the reason why he looked so
miserable and you were all so solemn? What had he done?"

"He came into the drawing-room without permission. He was let off very
easily because you were there, but I have known his mother punish him
severely for doing so."

"But, good heavens," said Hubert, rising from his seat, and leaning
against the trunk of the beech-tree, while he looked down at Enid with
an expression of utter perplexity, "why on earth should the child have
so little freedom; and why should Florence be so hard on him? She must
be altered! She was never fond of children, but she was too indolent to
be severe. Was not that your experience of her when you were a child?"

"Yes," said Enid, but too hesitatingly to give Hubert all the assurance
that he wished for--"yes; she did not take much trouble about what I
did. It is different with her own child."

"Surely she loves her own child better than she loved other
children--better even than you!" said Hubert, with the soft intonation
that turned the words into a compliment. "It is natural in a mother."

"One would think so," said the girl. Then, as if moved by a sudden
impulse, she spoke hurriedly, with her beautiful eyes full of tears.
"Oh, cousin Hubert"--it was thus that she had addressed him ever since
her babyhood--"do not think that I am unkind to Florence--I do not mean
it unkindly--but it does seem sometimes as if she really hated her
little boy! Poor little Dick has never known what it is to have a
mother's love. I am so sorry for him! I know what it is to be
motherless." Hubert averted his face, and gazed into the distance. "I
have lived many years without either father or mother," said the girl,
in a tone the simple pathos of which seemed to pierce her hearer's
heart, "but at any rate I remember what it was to have their love."

She wondered why Hubert stood motionless and irresponsive; it was not
like him to be so silent when an appeal was made to his sympathy. She
colored rosy red, with the instinctive fear that she had gone too far,
had said something of which he did not approve, and she tried, in her
naive unconsciousness of ill, to put the matter straight.

"But I have been very happy," she said earnestly. "Florence has always
been kind, and dear mamma herself cou